Quotes
Quotes about Wit
"With this same key Shakespeare unlocked his heart," once more! Did Shakespeare? If so, the less Shakespeare be!
Voltaire and Shakespeare! He was all The other feigned to be. The flippant Frenchman speaks: I weep; And Shakespeare weeps with me.
When great poets sing, Into the night new constellations spring, With music in the air that dulls the craft Of rhetoric. So when Shakespeare sang or laughed The world with long, sweet Alpine echoes thrilled Voiceless to scholars' tongues no muse had filled With melody divine.
But Shakespeare's magic could not copied be; Within that circle none durst walk but he.
The passages of Shakespeare that we most prize were never quoted until within this century. - Ralph Waldo Emerson,
Nor sequent centuries could hit Orbit and sum of Shakespeare's wit.
The stream of Time, which is continually washing the dissoluble fabrics of other poets, passes without injury by the adamant of Shakespeare.
This figure that thou here seest put, It was for gentle Shakespeare cut, Wherein the graver had a strife With Nature, to outdo the life: Oh, could he but have drawn his wit As well in brass, as he has hit His face, the print would then surpass All that was ever writ in brass; But since he cannot, reader, look Not on his picture, but his book.
Nature herself was proud of his designs, And joyed to wear the dressing of his lines! Which were so richly spun, and woven so fit, As since, she will vouchsafe no other wit.
Home-keeping youth have ever homely wits. -The Two Gentleman of Verona. Act i. Sc. 1.
He makes sweet music with th' enamell'd stones, Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge He overtaketh in his pilgrimage. -The Two Gentleman of Verona. Act ii. Sc. 7.
That man that hath a tongue, I say, is no man, If with his tongue he cannot win a woman. -The Two Gentleman of Verona. Act iii. Sc. 1.
A man I am, cross'd with adversity. -The Two Gentleman of Verona. Act iv. Sc. 1.
Come not within the measure of my wrath. -The Two Gentleman of Verona. Act v. Sc. 4.
Why, then the world 's mine oyster, Which I with sword will open. -The Merry Wives of Windsor. Act ii. Sc. 2.
Thyself and thy belongings Are not thine own so proper as to waste Thyself upon thy virtues, they on thee. Heaven doth with us as we with torches do, Not light them for themselves; for if our virtues Did not go forth of us, 't were all alike As if we had them not. Spirits are not finely touch'd But to fine issues, nor Nature never lends The smallest scruple of her excellence But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines Herself the glory of a creditor, Both thanks and use. -Measure for Measure. Act i. Sc. 1.
No ceremony that to great ones 'longs, Not the king's crown, nor the deputed sword, The marshal's truncheon, nor the judge's robe, Become them with one half so good a grace As mercy does. -Measure for Measure. Act ii. Sc. 2.
Ay, but to die, and go we know not where; To lie in cold obstruction and to rot; This sensible warm motion to become A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice; To be imprison'd in the viewless winds, And blown with restless violence round about The pendent world. -Measure for Measure. Act iii. Sc. 1.
O, what may man within him hide, Though angel on the outward side! -Measure for Measure. Act iii. Sc. 2.
A wretched soul, bruised with adversity. -The Comedy of Errors. Act ii. Sc. 1.
There 's a skirmish of wit between them. -Much Ado about Nothing. Act i. Sc. 1.
Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps. -Much Ado about Nothing. Act iii. Sc. 1.
A good old man, sir; he will be talking: as they say, When the age is in the wit is out. -Much Ado about Nothing. Act iii. Sc. 5.
O, what authority and show of truth Can cunning sin cover itself withal! -Much Ado about Nothing. Act iv. Sc. 1.
I never tempted her with word too large, But, as a brother to his sister, show'd Bashful sincerity and comely love. -Much Ado about Nothing. Act iv. Sc. 1.
